Protests This Week Show Dissent on New Orleans Criminal Justice System

Two upcoming protest marches have revealed divisions among New Orleanians in their views of police and the criminal justice system. Organizers of an LGBT March and Rally Against Hate and Violence, scheduled for this Wednesday at 8:00pm, and Slutwalk New Orleans, scheduled for this Saturday at 10:30am, have both advertised and embraced a police presence as part of their events, bringing criticism from other activists.

The facebook description of the LGBT March announces that the New Orleans police "will be there to escort us and protect us." The full description reads:

Please join us for a rally and a march to show the presence of the LGBT community in the French Quarter. As I am sure many of you know, there have been several recent anti-gay hate crimes in New Orleans and especially in the French Quarter and the Marigny. There have been many robberies as well. It is time that we start to show our connection to our community. We need people to see that we are united in our commitment to each other. We need them to know that if someone in our community has been victimized that we are there to support each other, either by getting people to report crimes that have been committed or by helping them to report the crimes if they feel that cannot do it on their own. During this march, the NOPD will be there to escort us and protect us. This is a great opportunity to get to know your local police. I encourage signage and your presence to show that we can be united and that it is the responsibility of us all to overcome these crimes in our neighborhood. So please join us on a walk through the French Quarter starting at the entrance to Armstrong Park at the corner of N. Rampart and St Ann.

In response, activists - including members of New Orleans Black & Pink, Critical Resistance, and other local organizations - have organized a rally with a more critical view of the police. They have released a statement that notes the harm done by law enforcement.

Our home is the incarceration capital of the world. One in 86 adult Louisiana residents is in prison. Approximately 5,000 African-American men from New Orleans are in state prisons, compared to 400 white men. Our city jail, Orleans Parish Prison, is a site of rape and violence that a Human Rights Watch report called "a nightmare" for LGBTQ individuals. Incarceration has not made us safer as a community— and in fact does not deter crime. When our community members are locked away, it tears at the social fabric that holds our community together. Children grow up without parents at home, lovers long for their partners, and groups miss their members.  

These activists have organized an alternate march and rally, called the LGBTQ March and Rally For Safety In Solidarity, aimed at presenting a different path towards community safety.

Supporting each other in the face of violence does not have to take the form of reporting to police. Community safety comes from solidarity and liberation. It comes from ensuring that all people have access to basic necessities such as food, shelter, employment, and education. We hope that through dialogue we can address concerns of all members of our community and arrive at empowering solutions together.

This division in the LGBTQ community is not new. Writing in the book Captive Genders, Morgan Bassichis, Alexander Lee and Dean Spade discussed the participants in the Stonewall Rebellion, who rioted against police:

Could these groundbreaking and often unsung activists have imagined that only forty years later the "official" gay rights agenda would be largely pro-police, pro-prisons, and pro-war - exactly the forces they worked so hard to resist? Just a few decades later, the most visible and well-funded arms of the "LGBT movement" look much more like a corporate strategizing session than a grassroots social justice movement. There are countless examples of this dramatic shift in priorities. What emerged as a fight against racist, anti-poor, and anti-queer police violence now works hand in hand with local and federal law enforcement agencies, district attorneys are asked to speak at trans rallies, cops march in Gay Pride parades. The agendas of prosecutors - those who lock up our family, friends, and lovers - and many queer and trans organizations are becoming increasingly similar, with sentence- and police-enhancing legislation at the top of the priority list. Hate crimes legislation is tacked onto multi-billion dollar "defense" bills to support US military domination in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Despite the rhetoric of an"LGBT community," transgender and gender-non-conforming people are repeatedly abandoned and marginalized in the agendas and priorities of our "lead" organizations.

Saturday's "Slutwalk"is part of an international movement against rape culture. The movement began in Toronto, in response to statements from police officers that placed blame on women, and their their outfits or behavior, for being raped. Despite its goals and history, the movement has often been criticized for using language that excludes women of color. Shortly after the movement began, Canadian organizer Harsha Walia wrote this analysis:

Slutwalk runs the risk of facilitating the dominant discourse of ‘liberated’ women as only those women wearing mini-skirts and high heels in/on their way to professional jobs. In reality, capitalism mediates the feminist façade of choice by creating an entire industry that commodifies women’s sexuality and links a woman’s self-esteem and self-worth to fashion and beauty. Slutwalk itself consistently refuses any connection to feminism and fixates solely around liberal questions of individual choice – the palatable “I can wear what I want” feminism that is intentionally devoid of an analysis of power dynamics.

The history of Slutwalk as a mostly white movement that excludes women of color is also highlighted by the timing and location of this year's march and rally. The rally begins at Congo Square at 10:30am. At the same place and time, an annual event called the Celebration of the African American Child is scheduled for the park, while just a few blocks away and a half hour earlier is an immigrants' rights march, sponsored by the New Orleans Congress Of Day Laborers.

On March 27, the organizer of New Orleans Slutwalk announced that law enforcement would be part of the event.

I am so super, special, extra excited to announce that representatives from several departments of the ‪#‎NOPD‬, and quite possibly other law enforcement agencies, will be joining us prior to the walk to discuss crime prevention and victims assistance in New Orleans!!!! For those of you who know the history of the SlutWalk movement...this is HUGE! HUGE!!!!!

While no counter protest has been planned for Slutwalk, this announcement brought responses similar to those expressed by critics of the LGBT march and rally. One commentator wrote, "the presence of the NOPD is offensive, threatening and problematic... Feminist politics without a racial/class analysis is not in fact feminist." The NOPD has been criticized in the past year for statements that blame women for sexual assault, and NOPD officers have frequently been charged with committing sexual assaults.

In response to online criticism, the Slutwalk organizer wrote:

I don't need to be "schooled" on feminism or why some might be offended or disturbed by the presence of law enforcement. I am well aware of the distressing behavior and actions of many within the NOPD and other agencies in this city. What I DO know is that as SlutWalk started because law enforcement failed the community, establishing dialogue with the police in this city is a starting point. Do I expect their presence to magically do away with racism, transphobia, sexism, misogyny, or any other issues we have with law enforcement? No. But I do know that without dialogue, none of those issues will ever be addressed.

Solidifying the links between these marches, today the organizer of the Slutwalk march posted a facebook invitation to the LGBT March and Rally Against Hate and Violence.

The conflicts revealed in these demonstrations are not new, but in the context of gentrification and displacement, a culture of police violence and an out of control city jail, they come at a time in our city when these issues evoke particular pain and passion. Organizers of the LGBTQ March and Rally For Safety In Solidarity do not see themselves as protesting the other march, but rather "calling in," to build a safer community without the devastating effects of the prison industrial complex.

Statement From LGBTQ March and Rally For Safety In Solidarity

For more information on the reasons for this statement, see this link.

As members of the LGBTQ community in New Orleans, we support the safety and well-being of our community and of all New Orleanians. We believe that increased police presence and the continuing expansion of the prison-industrial complex is not the way to make our community safer.

The LGBT March and Rally Against Violence to be held Wednesday, April 2 calls for strategies that put our community members at more risk, not less. From Compton's Cafeteria riots and the  Stonewall Rebellion in the 1960s to the work of contemporary groups such as INCITE!: Women, Gender Non-Conforming, and Trans People of Color* Against Violence, Critical Resistance, Women with a Vision, BreakOUT!, and Black & Pink, LGBTQ people have taken stands against police violence and harassment. Increasing police involvement in our community threatens the safety of many of us.  

We ask that the goals of your march be changed to call for real safety for all of us through solidarity, rather than false solutions of policing and jails. We are also calling for dialogue with the march organizers and the wider LGBTQ community.

Policing, surveillance, and imprisonment target specific groups of people: people of color, transgender, genderqueer and gender-nonconforming people, street youth, and sex workers. The state of Louisiana still has a "Crime Against Nature" law on the books, and this law is used against the LGBTQ community, including in Baton Rouge where police were found to be using this law to target gay men. In New Orleans, 82 people have been charged with "Solicitation of a Crime Against Nature" in the last two years, resulting in a felony conviction with required sex offender registration. This law, which unjustly criminalized in large numbers low-income Black women and transgender women of color, was challenged by Women With a Vision and the Center for Constitutional Rights, who won a victory in 2012 that removed approximately 700 individuals from the sex-offender registry.

A 2010 study published in the journal Pediatrics found that in our schools, LGBTQ youth are more likely to be suspended, arrested and imprisoned. The report published by the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, Locked Up & Out: LGBTQ Youth and Louisiana’s Juvenile Justice System, shares the stories of what happened to many of these young people in Louisiana.

A 2012 study by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that transgender individuals experience three times as much police violence as non-transgender individuals, and those numbers are even higher for transgender people of color. In New Orleans, organizations such as BreakOUT! and Women With A Vision have documented patterns of discrimination from the NOPD against the LGBTQ community, including rampant police profiling and threats of using condoms as evidence of prostitution, especially against transgender women of color.

Here in New Orleans, the US Department of Justice found that the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has discriminatory practices against the LGBTQ community and specifically addressed these issues in the Federal Consent Decree. This followed organizing by LGBTQ youth of BreakOUT! in their campaign, “We Deserve Better.” The campaign also resulted in the adoption of Policy 402 on the 44th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which prohibits the profiling of people on the basis of gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. These victories only came after years of grassroots organizing by LGBTQ youth, and yet with continued police harassment, much more remains to be done. 

Our home is the incarceration capital of the world. One in 86 adult Louisiana residents is in prison. Approximately 5,000 African-American men from New Orleans are in state prisons, compared to 400 white men. Our city jail, Orleans Parish Prison, is a site of rape and violence that a Human Rights Watch report called "a nightmare" for LGBTQ individuals. Incarceration has not made us safer as a community— and in fact does not deter crime. When our community members are locked away, it tears at the social fabric that holds our community together. Children grow up without parents at home, lovers long for their partners, and groups miss their members.  

Policing and incarceration is also a tool of gentrification and displacement, adding to a hostile environment for working class African-American residents still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. We can look to the examples of the controversies in Chicago's Boys Town neighborhood and New York City's West Village. In Boys Town, perceived increase in violence led to white gay men calling for more police patrols, and in doing so the LGBTQ youth of color who hung out near the community center in the neighborhood were unfairly targeted by the increased police. That effort did not support the unity of the LGBTQ community. A similar situation evolved in the West Village in New York City, where residents, many of whom were white, affluent gay men, responding to incidents of violence, pushed for Quality of Life policies. FIERCE, an LGBTQ youth of color organization, has campaigned against these policies, stating: "To this day, LGBTQ youth who go to the pier have reported sharp increases in police harassment, false arrest and racial and gender profiling - usually for just being in the neighborhood...This emphasis on policing drew massive resources from other social services and education that have the potential to actually address poverty and safety. In fact, under Giuliani and continuing through the years of the Bloomberg administration, the only 'public service' that increased funding was 'criminal justice.'"

Here in New Orleans, we've already begun to see the impact of massive gentrification projects on low-income LGBTQ communities of color. The targeting of transgender women on Tulane Avenue by the NOPD continues to put some of our city's most vulnerable populations at even greater risk for violence and danger. For many LGBTQ communities of color, increased policing and increased use of surveillance equipment means increased risk of harm.

Supporting each other in the face of violence does not have to take the form of reporting to police. Community safety comes from solidarity and liberation. It comes from ensuring that all people have access to basic necessities such as food, shelter, employment, and education. We hope that through dialogue we can address concerns of all members of our community and arrive at empowering solutions together.

Signed:

BreakOUT! 

Women With A Vision 

Critical Resistance - New Orleans 

Black & Pink - New Orleans 

Safe Streets Strong Communities 

Equality Louisiana

Trystereo - New Orleans Harm Reduction Network 

Louisiana Trans Advocates

European Dissent

Queerspiracy
Occupy NOLA

Police Harassment and Violence Against the Transgender Community

A shorter version of this article originally appeared on the Al Jazeera America website.

The modern gay rights movement was born on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, on Christopher Street in New York City’s West Village. Resistance broke out in response to a violent police raid against the gay community, and riots continued for several days. Many of the key leaders were transgender women, such as Sylvia Rivera, who had started her activism during the 1950s civil rights movement and continued until her death in 2002.

More than 40 years later, even in a place long considered a haven for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, many LGBT individuals are still living in fear of police violence. 

Advocates say the issues that ignited the Stonewall riots still are relevant today. Mitchyll Mora, a young activist, said police had harassed him for dressing feminine, and his friends for not fitting into narrow gender roles.

“Christopher Street is an historic location, and it's always been a haven for queer folks, especially young folks of color. But with gentrification, there's been aggressive policing here, and that's a really scary thing,” Mora told us. “It's scary when safe spaces are taken away from us.”

It’s not just in New York City. A 2012 study by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that transgender people across the U.S. experience three times as much police violence as non-transgender individuals. Those numbers are even higher for transgender people of color. Even when transgender people were the victims of hate crimes, 48 percent reportedreceiving mistreatment from the police when they went for help.

Andrea Ritchie, an attorney specializing in police misconduct, told us that law enforcement sees policing gender roles as part of their work.

“I think most people are familiar with racial profiling,” she told us. “But I think people are less familiar with how gender is really central to policing in the United States. That includes expectations in terms of how women are supposed to look, how men are supposed to look, how women are supposed to act and how men are supposed to act. And when they see someone who isn't acting in a way that they think they should be acting around gender, or isn't expressing gender in a particular way, or who is visibly someone who is queer or gender or sexually nonconforming, they often read that as disorder and they often perceive that person as already disorderly, as already suspicious, as already prone to violence.”

Andrea told us of a recent of a transgender woman Oklahoma who had been charged with disorderly conduct just for standing in public, demonstrating the idea that officers often find people who undermine expectations of gender to be intrinsically disorderly.

Ritchie says this tendency goes back to the roots of policing. “The first police forces in the United States were colonial armies,” says Ritchie. “And their mission was to seize land and control the people who were inhabiting the land, the indigenous peoples of this land. Scholars like Andrea Smith talk about how obviously policing of race, and controlling where a native people could and couldn't go was central to that project. She also talks about how policing gender was central to that project. And to communities who didn't necessarily have the kinds of hierarchies and social power relations, that colonizers had, there was a necessity of creating hierarchies in order to rationalize colonization. If you created these lines between male and female, and then you said that the male should have power over the females, then it made it easier to introduce the idea that there's a great white father somewhere else who should have power over indigenous populations.”

Police Violence Against Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Individuals from Anon Videos on Vimeo.

Dean Spade, a law professor and founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a poverty law center that represents transgender people, agrees. “That's part of what policing is – is this kind of generalized suspicion,” he said. “Does something look out of place? And transgender people are often that thing that looks out of place.”

Transgender Americans are also more likely to be poor and homeless, because of discrimination in jobs, housing and access to social services.

“If we want to understand why trans people face such high rates of criminalization and incarceration, it helps to see how poverty feeds that," adds Spade. "So people are already more likely to be poor because of job discrimination, because of not being able to access social services or homeless shelters. If you are poor and you can't access those things you're more likely to be poor and on the street which puts you in the path of the police."
For transgender Americans, this cycle of poverty, homelessness and prison can start early, since many are rejected by their families as teenagers, and end up in foster care and the juvenile justice system. “Those systems are predictors for the adult punishment systems,” Spade said. “Let's say a young trans girl is placed in a boys' group home, and she doesn't feel safe there. She leaves, so she's possibly living on the street, doing whatever she can to get by. Then she ends up in the criminal justice system.”

More hate crime laws might seem like one way to better protect transgender Americans. But advocates point out that much of the violence trans communities face is at the hands of the police itself. “And so the notion that expanding that system’s power to punish will somehow save us is really harmful,” Spade explained.

Advocacy organizations are working to change the discrimination LGBT people face. The group TransJustice, for example, trains transgender New Yorkers on their on their rights in interactions with police.

But it isn’t just the police who have attitudes that hurt the LGBT community, advocates told us. The media is guilty too. One example advocates gave was the case of the Jersey Four.

In 2006, a group of black lesbians from New Jersey were arrested for stabbing a man on Sixth Avenue in the West Village.

The women said a man, Dwayne Buckle, made crude sexual advances that they rejected, telling him they were lesbians. In response, they said, he spat at them and tried to choke two of the women. The women say they fought back in self-defense.

“The police responded to the scene and read the women not as people who were survivors of a violent attack, but as perpetrators of violence,” Ritchie told America Tonight. “This was because they were young, because they were black, because they were gender nonconforming.”

In 2007, four of the women were convicted of gang assault. The following year, two of those convictions were overturned.

We spoke to two members of the Jersey Four, Patreese Johnson, who served almost eight years in prison, and Renata Hill, whose assault conviction was vacated. Looking at these women, it was hard to imagine the severe sentences they had received. Patreese is under five feet tall hardly seems threatening. They described a legal system stacked against them from the beginning. They said the police immediately profiled them as criminals, a newspaper called them “killer lesbians,” Fox News called them a lesbian gang, and the prosecutor called them animals.

“Now this is a group of girls who never had any criminal history,” said Hill. “Who was in school and college, working, family, with our own apartments, everything. And none of that was spoken about.”

No reporter tried to reach out to their attorneys to try to get their story, according to Johnson. “What they had was off of assumptions in the police reports,” she said. “None of our statements were considered, so we were automatically found guilty throughout the media.”

“Good girls don't defend themselves. Good girls don't walk on the streets at night,” says Ritchie. “Those are the kinds of perceptions and gender norms that are being policed in those moments.”

PHOTO ABOVE: Alasia Farell, a young woman interviewed as part of this story.

Women With A Vision and BreakOUT! Respond to Times-Picayune’s “Uneasy Street”

The Times-Picayune/nola.com’s six articles and one video (and counting) about Tulane Avenue, dubbed “Uneasy Street,” are an unfortunate example of glorified and sensationalized media reporting that leads to increased criminalization of marginalized communities, rather than solutions.

As staff of Women With a Vision and BreakOUT!, two organizations that work to promote safer, healthier communities in New Orleans for women and LGBTQ communities, including youth and transgender women, we hope that the Times-Picayune will consider releasing another video with a more humane approach to people involved in (or assumed to be involved in) street economies along Tulane Avenue.

The video we are referencing claims that once sun sets along Tulane Avenue, “An even darker world emerges.” We agree. There is a darker side to Tulane Avenue. But it’s not the one shown.

It’s the stories of mothers, daughters, friends, and wives struggling to survive in a city that has offered them little resources. It’s women dealing with substance abuse or addiction. It’s women who cannot be hired by traditional employers simply because they are transgender. It’s the women who have been too busy struggling to be able to get a formal education to make them employable. It’s the stories of human beings, worthy of dignity, respect, and far more than this series of articles has afforded them.

This kind of sensationalized reporting has put these women at even greater risk for harm. Did you ever consider what might happen to the women whose faces you showed? Did it ever occur to you that one might be working 2 or more jobs, and still have to turn to the streets just to provide for their families? Did it ever occur to you that some may have children at home? Did it ever occur to you that others may be fleeing a violent relationship or have been kicked out of the home at a young age for being transgender? We ask these questions not so that you feel sorry for these women, but that you might recognize and see their humanity.

Rather than blaming the women struggling to survive in our city, we want the businesses along Tulane Avenue to afford our communities the same respect and decency they are asking for. To do so requires that we imagine more creative and restorative solutions to this “darker world.” The Director ofBreakOUT! attended a meeting of the Mid-City Business Association just recently, where store owners were discussing the problems they see along Tulane Avenue. During the question and answer period he asked, “Has anyone considered offering any of these women a job or any sort of job training at your business?” Not one person in the room could tell us the thought had ever crossed their minds. When media articles like this continue to give voice to the mischaracterization of transgender women as “men in dresses,” it should come as no surprise that transgender people feel marginalized and unwelcome in their own city.

To be clear: this problem is not unique to New Orleans. Nationally, transgender people have double the rate of unemployment and poverty, while also being disproportionately represented among homeless populations and those without access to healthcare (National Center for Transgender Equality, National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce.) Similarly, for black women, underemployment and employment discrimination remain core structural issue that contribute to systemic poverty, homelessness, and an array of health disparities, including HIV to cervical cancer. Nationally, women of color earn just 70 cents for every dollar paid to men and just 64 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men (US Census Bureau).

The articles admit that many of those who stay in the motels along Tulane Avenue call them home. At Women With a Vision and BreakOUT! we understand that many of these individuals are young people who have left their homes and now live, the best they are able, in motels with up to 10 other girls at a time. Not all are engaged in the sex trade, however. Many have found a sense of community with one another, formed their own tightly-knit chosen families, and are doing more with their lives.

For the past two years, BreakOUT! has been working to stop discriminatory policing practices, particularly among LGBTQ youth of color and transgender young women, that prevents many of our young people from doing just that. We have made great strides in our campaign, called “We Deserve Better” and recently celebrated a victory in our campaign when the NOPD adopted a LGBTQ policy just last month. The policy states, among other things, that police officers cannot use gender identity or gender expression as probable cause or reasonable suspicion for a police stop or arrest. And yet in this video, we see our neighbors doing the exact same kind of profiling familiar to the NOPD when a young woman crosses the street in the middle of the afternoon.

And for the past five years, Women With a Vision has been working hard on the NO Justice! Campaign to combat the criminalization of women who have engaged in street-based survival sex work and, because of a Solicitation for Crimes Against Nature conviction, were required to register as sex offenders for periods of fifteen years to life. This campaign emerged from our more than twenty-year commitment to advancing the wellbeing of New Orleans’ most marginalized women and their families by challenging the policies and structures that make women have to choose between their daily survival and their long-term health. We made great strides – getting the law declared unconstitutional, removing women from the registry, and ensuring that the public understood how women’s lives had been destroyed by disproportionate sentencing. And yet, with this video and these articles, you have turned back the clock once again.

Increased criminalization of women, including transgender women, increased policing, increased use of surveillance equipment and security cameras, and increased demonification of women in the street economies will not make our City any safer. And it is putting our most vulnerable citizens at even greater risk. We continue to need increased access to employment, housing, education, and healthcare, including substance abuse treatment.

Even the NOPD recognizes the limitations of criminalization as Officer Ricky Jackson is quoted in the article, “You can’t arrest your way out of this situation.” Finally, the NOPD gets something right.

Women With a Vision and BreakOUT! are providing much-needed services and organizing for a better City. What then, is your role in this, nola.com? Will you now leverage your resources to help solve this problem in our city by reporting on novel community-led solutions for fostering economic justice, or will you continue to exasperate it by running sensationalist stories like this?

Deon Haywood, Women With a Vision 504.301.0428
Wesley Ware, BreakOUT! 504.473.2651

New Orleans Police Department Issues LGBTQ Policy on Anniversary of Historic Stonewall Riots Against Police Brutality

From a press release from BreakOUT!

After organizing for over two years, BreakOUT! members enjoyed a victory today in the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) with the issuing of Policy 402, dealing with the treatment of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) community. 

The policy includes protocols for stopping and searching transgender individuals and mandates that officers be trained on issues pertaining to the LGBTQ community.  Most importantly, the policy specifically mandates that, Officers shall not use an individual's actual or perceived gender identity, or sexual orientation as reasonable suspicion or probable cause that an individual is or has engaged in any crime.  (NOPD Policy 402.4)

"While BreakOUT! is hopeful for the policy's implementation, we recognize that much more must be done to ensure the safety of queer and trans youth of color on the streets of New Orleans," said BreakOUT!Youth Organizer Derwin Wilright, Jr.

Members and organizers of BreakOUT! were disappointed in the lack of community engagement during the policy's development. While BreakOUT! secured a commitment from the NOPD in October 2012 to meet with members prior to the adoption of any LGBTQ policies after members testified about their experiences with the NOPD in front of City Council, it was not until March 2013 that BreakOUT! was invited to a meeting.  This meeting was only after BreakOUT! sent over 300 emails to Chief Ronal Serpas demanding that the NOPD keep their promise to LGBTQ youth in New Orleans. 

After receiving the first draft of the policy, BreakOUT! called for public meetings for the NOPD to solicit community feedback and engage community members in policing reforms.  BreakOUT! held a rally in front of NOPD headquarters to deliver a statement with signatures from over 15 organizational partners to call attention to racial and gender profiling and Stop & Frisk practices, including Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition. 

Although the NOPD refused BreakOUT!'s request for a public meeting, youth members solicited community feedback on the policy themselves and brought community members, including representatives from the Congress of Day Laborers, to the NOPD meeting with them.

All of this comes as the Department of Justice and City of New Orleans continue to battle over desperately needed federal oversight of the NOPD.  While these policies are a step in the right direction, BreakOUT! members say they are a far cry from the sweeping reforms needed to keep community members safe from  harmful and discriminatory policing practices in New Orleans.

It is notable that the policy was released on the 44th Anniversary of the historic Stonewall Riots, where queer and transgender youth of color and drag queens fought back against police brutality and police raids in Greenwich Village in New York.

"We can see that little has changed in the last four decades and BreakOUT! must continue the tradition of organizing for a safe and just city," said Milan Alexander,BreakOUT! Youth Organizer.  

New Orleans Film About James Booker Sets SXSW Festival on Fire

Bayou Maharajah Trailer from Lily Keber on Vimeo.

New Orleans filmmaker Lily Keber's film Bayou Maharajah, about James Booker, "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced," premiered this week at SXSW film festival in Austin Texas, and has already been generating excitement.

The trailer for the film was featured on RollingStone.com. The film’s poster debuted on IndieWire. The Hollywood Reporter named the film the #1 Must See Music Movie of SXSW 2013. PASTE Magazine called Bayou Maharajah the #2 Must See Movie at SXSW. Billboard Magazine mentioned Bayou Maharajah in three separate articles, including an extensive profile featuring interviews with Harry Connick, Jr., Joe Boyd, Scott Billington, Don Williams, and director Lily Keber. Variety Magazine listed the film first in their Searching For The Next Sugarman article and featured a picture from the film as the headlining photograph. Out Magazine listed Bayou Maharajah as the top Most Notable LGBT film to see at SXSW and featured a still from the film as the headlining photograph. A longer article for Rolling Stone followed.

Interviews with Director/Producer Lily Keber were featured on Austin Fox-7’s Morning News Show, KOOP’s Writing On The Air, efilmcritic.com, nola.com, and OffBeat Magazine. The Austin-American Statesman called the film “ecstatic, sorrowful, beautiful, pained, full of anger, joy and something otherworldly.”

Bayou Maharajah has also been profiled on NPR’s Weekend Edition, NOLA Defender, The Vinyl District, Larry Blumenfeld’s Blu Notes, Sal Nunziato’s Burning Wood blog, Alex Rawl’s My Spilt Milk. Roger Ebert has tweeted about Bayou Maharajah twice.

It's always exciting when New Orleans culture receives some of the international recognition it deserves.

Women With A Vision, Recovering From Arson, Purchases Building

Women With A Vision, a community-based non-profit founded by a grassroots collective of African-American women in response to the spread of HIV/AIDS in communities of color, has just made a downpayment on a building in Midcity New Orleans. The Vision House will enable the organization to continue and expand their work - but first the house needs massive repairs, including gutting the entire structure, shoring of the foundation, and rebuilding the house from the inside out. They have set up an online campaign to donate, here.

Below is more information, from the WWAV fundraising website:

On May 24, 2012, Women With A Vision suffered what could have been a debilitating blow. Our offices were ransacked and torched in an aggravated arson attack; we were left with nothing but the charred remains of twenty-one years of work.

In the wake of this attack, you helped us remember that fire can also be a powerful tool of rebirth. Through your support and generosity, we were not only able to continue to be a lifeline for New Orleans’ most vulnerable women in this time of crisis, but we were also able to reach new heights in the national and international fight for women’s health and wellbeing.

We write now to ask for your continued support as we work to open our new home after the fire.

We at Women With A Vision envision an environment in which there is no war against women and LGBTQ communities, in which people have spaces to come together and share their stories, in which people are empowered to make decisions concerning their own bodies and lives, and in which people have the necessary support to realize their hopes, dreams, and full potential. Since 1991, this vision has been our rallying cry, taking us from the streets of New Orleans to the halls of Congress as we work to give people the tools to make their lives better and to organize for justice.

But 2012 was a particularly big year for us.

* We brought in the New Year with several Hill visits to testify to the on-the-ground impact of HIV criminalization, drug prohibition and funding cuts to health services;
* On March 29th, we won a monumental victory when U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman deemed Louisiana’s Crime Against Nature by Solicitation statue unconstitutional. We have gotten 68 people off the sex offender registry list, and an additional 116 people have filed motions;
* In June, just days after the fire, we launched our Micro-Enterprise program to support our participants’ economic self-sufficiency as they transition from street-based economies;
* In July, we traveled to Washington, DC to bring a focus on the HIV/AIDS crisis among women of color in the South at this historic International AIDS Conference;
* We welcomed Fall with the launch of our new harm reduction policy initiative; and
* We concluded a yearlong partnership with Louisiana State University through which we were able to refer more than 300 low-income women for breast cancer screenings.

Most importantly, we end 2012 having just secured a new space on North Claiborne, which we will make our Vision House. The outpouring of support we received after the fire helped us make the down payment on the property, but we still have massive repairs ahead of us, including gutting the entire structure, shoring of the foundation, and rebuilding the house from the inside out.

Our People Are Worth the Risks: A Southern Queer Agenda from the Margins and the Red States, By Southerners On New Ground (SONG)

Reprinted from the SONG website and from the Scholar & Feminist Online, a webjournal published by the Barnard Center for Research on Women: 

In the best parts of our tradition as LGBTQ people for liberation, we have resisted assimilation. We have held die-ins, we have risked our lives at pride celebrations, we have been willing to be part of spectacle and even to be hated—in the hope that our work would mean motion towards liberation. We have witnessed a mainstream LGBT movement that has moved away from these practices, and many of us have spent years in conference centers and hotel rooms all around this country pushing back against a mainstreaming of this movement. It is not enough to disagree with the mainstream agenda. We must be actively creating, resourcing, and organizing new strategies that move a politics of intersectionality into the fields, the small towns, the cities, the bedrooms, the televisions, and the visions of this country and this world. These strategies must work tirelessly to build contagious power with those LGBTQ people who have been left behind by a mainstream gay rights agenda and the unlikely allies who have been passed by. 

In the past two years, SONG has mobilized and transformed thousands of LGBTQ people in the South through two campaigns. In 2011, our campaign against anti-immigrant hate in Georgia unleashed the power of an unprecedented number of LGBTQ people in a fight for liberation that was not slanted “single-issue” toward the traditional definition of gay rights. In 2012, our fight against the antifamily amendment in North Carolina (denying the basic rights of all unmarried couples and our children) was named by the North Carolina News Service as one of the biggest grassroots efforts in the history of North Carolina. Both of these campaigns happened in the South: the part of the country that the media tells us is the most hateful and hostile to marginalized communities. We know without a doubt that all the successes in this work originate from the thousands of LGBTQ southerners and allies who led these efforts. They are voting for a new queer agenda with their sweat, risk taking, and voices. SONG listened to them, created an organizational container, and provided strategic direction. They did the rest. At every turn, when we reframed messages away from a narrow, single-issue, gay rights agenda, our people on the ground responded with vigorous affirmation, agitation, and effort.

All over this country, our people grow tired of a defensive, apologetic LGBT strategy against the right wing. Bullies do not stop when they are appeased. We have nothing to apologize for, and yet we watch as our own people and issues are publicly “de-gayed,” portrayed as middle-class and white—all in the name of eventual equality. In the South, we watch tall grass grow up over the houses where our neighbors used to live and over the businesses that used to populate our small towns. We watch as our family members are detained and deported, our comrades are pushed involuntarily into sex work just to survive, and our children are incarcerated. We turn on the television and hear a conversation about LGBTQ people every day that names us as perverted; sinful; and worthy of pain, isolation, and death. 

Yet our mainstream movement, which claims it speaks for us, tells us to wait for policy wins. We are assured that these wins will trickle down to us as some form of victory on our behalf. As people living in the South, as undocumented immigrants, as people of color, as trans people, as rural people, and as people with disabilities, SONG says this is not good enough. In the absence of stronger national leadership, we call on queer liberationists to build and amplify our power and take our rightful leadership regardless of the scale of our organizations: local, statewide, regional, or national. This article seeks to lay out a little bit more about evolving thoughts on how to do just that, from a Southern perspective on queer liberation. We hope that it inspires other groups (who have not already done so) to seize the moment, stop, listen, and respond to the conditions of today.

Crime Against Nature Law Back in Court

From our friends at Women With A Vision and Center for Constitutional Rights:

Fill the Court For Oral Arguments In the Case To Overturn Louisiana’s Crime Against Nature Law!

Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012, 10:00 a.m
Federal District Court, 500 Poydras Street
Judge Feldman’s Court—Room C551

Many of you supported us during Doe, et al. v. Jindal, et al.-- a federal lawsuit filed against state officials in Louisiana, challenging the fact that a Crime Against Nature by Solicitation (CANS) conviction requires registration as a sex offender on the state sex offender registry.  On March 29, 2012, the Court ruled in Plaintiffs’ favor, agreeing that this registration requirement violates the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution. The Court unambiguously ruled that it is unconstitutional to require someone to register as a sex offender solely because of a CANS conviction.

Yet almost 500 people remain on the registry.

So we’ve sued the state again, and we need your support. 

Doe, et al. v. Caldwell, et al. is a federal class action lawsuit seeking to remove from the sex offender registry the hundreds of people who are still forced to register solely as a result of a CANS conviction despite the March 29, 2012 ruling in Doe v. Jindal that deemed that practice unconstitutional.

In Louisiana, people accused of soliciting sex for a fee can be criminally charged in two ways: either under the prostitution statute, or under the solicitation provision of the Crime Against Nature statute.  This archaic statute, adopted in 1805, outlaws “unnatural carnal copulation,” which has been defined by Louisiana courts as oral and anal (but not vaginal) sex.  Police and prosecutors have unfettered discretion in choosing which to charge.  But a Crime Against Nature conviction subjects people to far harsher penalties than a prostitution conviction.  Most significantly, individuals convicted of a Crime Against Nature are forced to register as sex offenders.

The registry law imposes many harsh requirements that impacts every aspect of our clients’ lives.  For example, they must carry a state driver’s license or non-drivers’ identification document which brands them as a sex offender in bright orange capital letters.  They must disclose the fact that they are registered as a sex offender to neighbors, landlords, employers, schools, parks, community centers, and churches.  Their names, address, and photographs appear on the internet. 

Many of our clients have been unable to secure work or housing as a result of their registration as sex offenders.  Several have been barred from homeless shelters.  One has been physically threatened by neighbors.  And another has been refused residential substance abuse treatment because providers will not accept sex offenders at their facilities.

Our clients are not alone in being forced to register as sex offenders solely as a result of a Crime Against Nature by Solicitation conviction.  Indeed, almost 40 percent of registered sex offenders in Orleans Parish are on the registry as a result of such a conviction.  76 percent of these individuals are women, and 80 percent of them are African American.

CCR argues that being forced to register as a sex offender because of a Crime Against Nature conviction serves no legitimate purpose whatsoever.  As such, it is unjustifiable and unconstitutional.  CCR further contends that the only reason our clients are registered sex offenders is that they were convicted under the provisions of a 200-year-old statute that condemns non-procreative sex acts and sex acts traditionally associated with homosexuality, solely on grounds of moral disapproval.

Women With A Vision also spoke at the New Orleans City Council about the recent arson attack they faced. See the clip here.

‘We All Count’ Campaign To Combat Historic Levels of Voter Suppression and Disenfranchisement

From a press release from Project South:

More than 30 million people will be discouraged or prevented from voting in this election. “This is the highest number since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. We know that many of those people are African-Americans, LGBT people, people displaced by foreclosure or disaster, and young people—we are working to bring these communities together, and to say that we will not be erased,” says Emery Wright, Co-Director of Project South in Atlanta, GA.

While the Democratic and Republican parties fight for the votes of people across the country, 15 grassroots Southern groups working for social justice are taking a different approach through an effort called the ‘We All Count’ campaign.

The 2008 election, which many considered a decisive victory, was decided by 9.5 million votes. The 2004 election was decided by 3 million votes. If even a fraction of the voters who are discouraged or prevented from voting were able to vote this year, the blue-red map could look very different.

While the media and many national organizations abandon the South during election years, these 15 groups representing over 25,000 people have established 25 action sites around the South. Instead of playing beltway politics, more than 300 organizers are engaging ‘unlikely’ voters - inviting them to join with other communities, to participate, and to be counted.

“Working with the ‘We All Count’ campaign has changed my life,” says Shaquita Bell, a 22-year-old college student at Alabama State University in Montgomery, AL. “I have learned so much about how to engage my community and stay involved beyond the election, when our organizations are needed the most.”

150 people will gather in Lowndes County, Alabama on September 22 to represent their communities and vote on a plan of action for the People’s First 100 Days. Lowndes County is the historic site of Tent City on the trail of the Selma to Montgomery March that organized for voting rights almost forty years ago. While other groups focus on how to target individual voter groups around narrow individual interests, the We All Count campaign is working to shine a light on how different groups of ‘unlikely’ voters have similar interests but are often marginalized from the democratic process.

This movement in the US South is bringing together people who are often dismissed as non-voters or as people without political power. But as history shows us, the power of a multiracial, multi-generational coalition represents a significant powerbase that can respond locally, regionally, and nationally to the attacks on immigrants, youth, women, and families living on the frontlines of poverty.

“Some people have asked why an LGBTQ organization would be spending our time building with Latino and Black-led groups across the South this fall instead of working with other LGTBQ groups to push ‘our issues’’, states Caitlin Breedlove, Co-Director of Southerners On New Ground (SONG), a regional LGBTQ organization. “The answer is simple—‘our issues’ are far more alike than different—people of Color, immigrants and LGBTQ people are being blamed for lack of jobs, unaccountable government programs, and fissures in our family and community values. But, we all need and deserve good schools, good jobs and basic safety—we need to come together to make our voices heard.”

“Many people ask me why ex-felons and formerly incarcerated people would be spending time building with immigrants, gays, and youth,” states Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, a formerly incarcerated person who leads The Ordinary People’s Society (TOPS) in Dothan Alabama. “The answer is simple: our issues are connected, and the disenfranchisement of any person threatens the whole democracy.” More than three million people who have served their time are still excluded from voting every election. “If we look at the economics of disenfranchisement, in Alabama alone the cost of housing inmates is approaching 30k per year. It makes good moral sense and sound economic sense to ensure public participation and reduce recidivism. We all need and deserve good schools, good jobs, and basic safety—we need to come together to make our voices heard.”

Isabella's Story: A Transgender Person's Story of Survival Inside Louisiana's Prisons

The letter below came to us from our friends at BreakOUT!. This Thursday night at 9:00pm, the Allways Lounge will host a benefit for BreakOUT! featuring a range of performances; circus, burlesque, drag, bounce, and more.
"This is a short story of my life. Please type it and print it and send it to anybody who it might help."

My name is Isabella. I'm 22 years old and I'm a transgender woman. I was born and raised in New Orleans, LA. I'm currently serving a 13 1/2 year sentence in prison.

I'm writing this in hopes that I will touch the lives of other LGBTQ people or anybody else who listens. This is my story. I'm basically going to talk about my transition into society as a transgender woman, including my time spent in group homes, juvenile institutions, and adult institutions. I hope that you enjoy my story and pass it on.

I first realized I had an attraction to boys when I was about 12-13 years old. I've always been feminine and was fascinated by girls and wanted to be one. They used to tease me in school saying "You talk like a girl," "You act like a girl," or "You're gay."

I was like in 2nd grade, I didn't even know what "gay" was. I tried to hide it at first because I was scared and I wanted to be accepted. This did not work out at all. I turned to drugs at the age of 13. I used drugs to numb the pain and feel happy. I used all types of drugs. Once I got caught up in the juvenile system, I could not stay out. I kept coming back and forth from group home to jail. My family was very worried about me, they kept placing me in different programs trying to help me but I rebelled against them. The judge got tired of me and send me to a juvenile prison.

The juvenile system was very hard for me. I used to fight a lot trying to defend my sexual orientation and gender identity. I used to get mistreated by staff and other youth. I was treated differently and discriminated against for who I am. There weren't good substance abuse programs or other treatment services in there. After serving time in the juvenile prison, I went home and started doing drugs again. This caused me to be sent back to juvenile prison again. Every time I would get out I would go back to the same people and I always ended up in jail. I would make decisions and not think about the consequences - I was living for the moment.

When I was about 15 years old, I made the decision that I'm gonna be who I am. I was tired of hiding who I truly was. Every since I made this decision I've been at peace with myself. That's why I believe that I was truly born this way.

Despite my acceptance of myself, I still didn't have anywhere to go and others rejected me. I would still get involved with some guy and I would always get hurt because I was looking for love in all the wrong places. When you're involved with drugs and negative activities, the people who are around you will use and abuse you. They will tell you everything you want to hear and some. I fell for these types of people plenty of times. I had no positive peer support and no place to go.

When I got out of juvenile prison the second time, I was considered an adult. Any crime I committed now, I would go to adult jail...

At this time, I started dressing in women's clothes and taking estrogen and living my life as a full-time transgender woman. But I still didn't kick my drug habit. I kept using drugs to numb the pain I felt. I also used to believe that I could "buy" love and friends. Which is the worst thing I could have done. This left me feeling hurt, miserable, not wanted, and alone because people were always using me for their own personal gain and I was too blind to see it. I just wanted to be loved and accepted.

This lifestyle led me to adult jail, Orleans Parish Prison, to be exact. Orleans Parish Prison is a place of violence where LGBTQ people, especially transgender women, get mistreated on a daily basis. During my time there I was sexually assaulted by inmates and staff also physically assaulted me. The prison offers no protection or assistance to people who look for it. Therefore, I had to survive on my own.

During my time there I was given a break and was sent to work release. This was a much better environment, but I still didn't receive any substance abuse treatment.I got involved with this guy. I thought he was one of the best things that ever happened to me- I truly believed I found true love. We got out around the same time and once again, I was free. I was 21 years old and madly in love, but you can never have a happy relationship when there are drugs involved - never.

Well as you already know, there was no help or support for LGBTQ youth like myself and so I eventually got caught up again and ended up back in jail. I got blessed with a good a lawyer but I still got a lot of time. I finally came to a point in my life where I had to make a choice. Either I was gonna start loving myself or continue with this ignorant and destructive lifestyle.

I have been in jail one year and also have been clean one year- and that's by choice because they have a lot of drugs in jail, believe me. I'm just tired of the same old thing. So I'm losing out on years of my life behind this. I regret a lot of my decisions in the past but when I get out I'll still have a chance to live a happy life. I could go into so many more details about my past but I choose not to because that's not my main focus. My main focus is getting through to somebody so we can help them.

Well now I'm adjusting to prison life as a transgender woman. It's not easy - it's much different from the juvenile justice system. For example, a gay or transgender person in prison can't stand up and urinate- we must always sit down. We must face the wall in the shower, too. That is just some of the "jailhouse rules." A lot of it is a bunch of foolishness if you ask me. But you have to respect others and yourself in here so you won't have too many problems.

I'm missing on the best years of my life because of bad choices and a juvenile system that didn't help me. And if I can reach out and just help one person, I will be satisfied. I'm blessed to have family and friends sticking by my side during my incarceration- but I'm still lonely in prison. Because it's a lonely place.

I love my LGBTQ people to death because we are people and we need to be treated equally. Self-love comes first and then other things fall in place. I still have so much to learn in life. I'm fighting everyday to achieve my dreams. I recommend the Lady Gaga song "Born This Way" to anybody who is reading my story. The words in that song are great. We all are superstars no matter gay, straight, bisexual, lesbian or transgender. We're people who desire to be happy. We're just different and unique and the creator made us this way. No matter what I did I could never change my sexual orientation or gender identity, because this is who I am and it's not wrong. It's okay to be gay or transgender. But there are LGBTQ people who are mistreated all around the world everyday. But there are so many positive things for us, too.

I'm trying to start a group in prison now for LGBTQ people so we can come together and help each other. Society sends out so many negative things about LGBTQ people. It's terrible. I'm only 22 years old but I've been through a lot and my experiences can help other people who are having problems. If you read my story, I hope you enjoyed it. It's very short and in the future I plan on doing a lot more.

I would like to thank BreakOUT! for sticking by my side. Their staff has been at my side since 2007; since before BreakOUT! was created. They have inspired me to be positive in life and help other people.

Photo above: BreakOUT members at organizing meeting.

Library of New Orleans Youth Prison to Feature LGBTQ-Centered Books as Part of Model Policy

From our friends at BreakOUT!:
BreakOUT! member and formerly-detained youth, B., delivered a box of LGBTQ books to the Youth Study Center, New Orleans’ juvenile detention facility, on Friday.

The books, which came through generous donations from community members during a book drive held in September, were collected in appreciation for the facility’s adoption of a model LGBTQ policy. Among other best practices for the treatment of transgender youth and a requirement for staff training, the policy requires that “Books about being LGBT and LGBT-inclusive magazines will be made available to youth.”

Donated books, which will be placed in the facility’s new library, included both young adult fiction and non-fiction and ranged from books about gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin to coming-of-age novels. The facility Director, Glenn Holt, and BreakOUT! thanks everyone who donated books for youth in custody. More information about the facility's policy can be found on the BreakOUT! blog.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Organizations “Come Out” Against ICE’s “Secure Communities” Deportation Program

From our friends at Streetwise & Safe:
LGBT Immigrants At Risk of Deportation, Violence as a Result of Police/ICE Collaboration

Dozens of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) organizations across the country are adding their voices to the growing national movement to end ICE‘s controversial fingerprint-sharing ―Secure Communities (S-Comm) program. By forcing local law enforcement to share fingerprint data for every person arrested – no matter how valid or minor the charge - with federal immigration authorities, S-Comm has contributed to skyrocketing numbers of detentions and deportations.

Prompted by ICE‘s unilateral move to make the highly debated program mandatory, national, regional, and local LGBTQ organizations—including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) — felt compelled to mark National Coming Out Day by adding their voices to the national upsurge of opposition to S-Comm today.

"NCAVP is concerned by the impact of police/ICE collaboration on LGBTQ survivors of violence. It is not uncommon for LGBTQ survivors of violence to be arrested when they call police for help. NCAVP member programs know that many LGBTQ survivors do not access police for safety when they experience violence, and the Secure Communities program may increase fear, barriers to safety, and risk of detention and deportation for LGBTQ immigrant communities," said Chai Jindasurat, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) Coordinator at the New York City Anti-Violence Project. "In honor of this year‘s National Coming Out Day, NCAVP calls for an end to a program that has severe consequences for LGBTQ people."

In a statement released on National Coming Out Day, over sixty LGBTQ groups call on President Obama to take immediate action to eliminate this destructive program. California Assemblymember and longtime LGBTQ rights activist Tom Ammiano echoed this call: "Every day LGBTQ Californians are being unfairly deported leading to tragic consequences for communities both here and across the country. I am urging the Obama Administration to end the deception around S-Comm and suspend this damaging program."

"The LGBTQ movement has often been an example of how to hold your head high with pride in the face of discrimination. As migrants, we're inspired by National Coming Out Day and strengthened by this show of solidarity," said Sarahi Uribe, Organizer of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

"We hear regular reports of LGBTQ people who find themselves in deportation proceedings after being profiled by their race, class, sexuality, and gender as they go about their daily lives or even as they navigate domestic violence," said Morgan Bassichis of the San Francisco-based Community United Against Violence (CUAV), the country’s oldest LGBTQ anti-violence organization. "Rather than making anyone more 'secure,' S-Comm endangers all communities by tearing at the fabric of family and support networks and creating a culture of fear."

The statement marks a historic confluence of movements for LGBTQ rights and migrant rights, and increased attention to migrant issues within LGBTQ communities. "On this National Coming Out Day, we recognize that LGBT immigrants need more than acceptance from family, schools, and neighbors to be 'out:' they need to be free from profiling, detention, and deportation," said Mónica Enriquez-Enriquez of Streetwise and Safe, an organization working with LGBTQ youth of color in New York City and signatory to the statement.

For background information on the Secure Communities program, read the report at “Restoring Community."

Streetwise and Safe (SAS) is a New York City-based organization create opportunities for LGBTQQ youth of color who experience homelessness, policing, and criminalization to claim a seat at policy discussion tables as full participants, speak out on their own behalf, act collectively to protect and advance their rights, and demand choices that allow them to maximize their safety, self-sufficiency, and self-determination.